The Big Winner in the Second POTUS Debate: Climate Change! [Greg Laden's Blog]

Climate change is a settled issue. It is now widely and recognized as real, and as one of the top, if not THE top, existential problems the world faces today. Americans want climate change stopped, and they want the next version of the US Government, the one that starts in January, 2017, to work hard to reduce the human release of greenhouse gas as rapidly as possible.

How do we know this?

Because no one mentioned a thing about it during last night’s debate!

A few months ago, I would have expected presidential debates to have included climate change pretty much in every iteration. It doesn’t matter if the overarching subject matter is national security, the economy, or any other topic; climate change figures importantly in every aspect of American national policy. But, in the intervening time, we’ve had the Paris agreement, we’ve had a general acknowledgement that climate change is real by a growing number of former skeptics, and recently, even Donald “It’s a Chinese Hoax” Trump told us that he never said it was a Chinese hoax.

So, it’s over! No need to discuss the most important issue of our times, even after the floodwaters caused by a devastating global warming enhanced hurricane are still receding in the American southeast, and bodies are still being found in the rubble in Haiti. Apparently, everyone, including Anderson Cooper (who did a TV special on how important climate change is a few years go) and the others at the debate, are have boarded the cliamte change train and are ready to move forward!